A few years ago I stumbled upon a shocking and powerful lens called, SECRET FREEGAN: Rescuing Food to Feed Homeless. At first the lens really grossed me out, but then after reading it again and really paying attention to the idea behind the lens it opened my eyes to the wastefulness of our society. In short, a brave Squidoo lensmaster makes it her daily mission to feed the hungry. How she feeds the hungry is what is so controversial.
To put it delicately, Secret Freegan (Ginger Freebird) gathers food from the trash bins and distributes it between the homeless and her family. “I'm doing a little by gathering and distributing about 400 lbs. of food weekly,” she states on her lens.
Stumbling upon this lens I immediately began to ask myself, "what if someone gets sick? Those bins are dirty. Right!? What about food poisoning, bugs and …"
As gross as it all sounds, when you read the lens, when you look at all the valuable and eye opening pictures, when you watch the YouTube videos and think about all the hungry people that go hungry every night, you become angered. At least, I did. People all over the world are starving, especially in these tough economic times. Restaurants and grocery stores could donate all their unwanted or unneeded food instead of throwing it away. So, why don’t they? Liability! Appearances? Laziness?
Take a look at the pictures and the videos Ginger displays on her lens. The handfuls of bruised, but still eatable bananas are a good example. I use bruised bananas to make banana bread and liquado all of the time. Why then, were these bruised bananas thrown away instead of donated?
Do I condone what Secret Freegan is doing? Well…that is a tough question to answer. I understand why she does it and I hate that grocery stores and restaurants throw such good food away when it can be used instead to feed so many hungry people. Still, I worry about the dirty bins she pulls the food from. What else has been thrown in those bins that could contaminate the food?
If you read Ginger's lens you will learn how careful she is about gathering the food. For example, she will not collect any milk from the bins and she gathers food that has only been recently thrown away . Ginger also mentions that she has asked the stores directly to donate the unwanted foods to her instead of wasting them, but due to liability they will not.
I would love it if Secret Freegan would use the page break module for this lens. It is a very long lens and the page break module would be a perfect fit. Aside from that, thank you Secret Freegan for the difference you have made. I look forward to more of your lenses.
Visit: SECRET FREEGAN: Rescuing Food to Feed Homeless
This is an eye-opener! What a shame the stores can't start using a clean dedicated bin for still-packaged, edible food as a workaround. Food waste seems a crime when there are people who cannot even afford to eat. A very interesting recommendation.
ReplyDeleteAnother amazing story! Food waste just breaks my heart. On another note, in our town, there was a story recently about an inner city school teacher who scrounged the garbage bins of the suburban schools and was able to provide a full year of school supplies for her class. Unbelievable!
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